Cheers, ladies!
Intro to truffles
The most expensive fungus in the world might not appeal to everyone out there, just like not everyone out there likes caviar - status and price of the food do not translated into the same value for everyone. But we love truffles. They have very unique smell and flavor - it is of something slightly sweet and rotten, but a very pleasant kind of rot. It is not for everyone. But if you are curious and have never had truffles before, you don't have to splurge on fresh truffles to experience truffle flavor - truffle-infused oil is a good way to introduce yourself to truffles. The first time I cooked a dish which was supposed to have truffle flavor, a truffle risotto, I did use truffle-infused oil and not the actual fungus. But a few years before that, I did have a pleasure of eating a truffle risotto (in a restaurant, in Bern, Switzerland - Kornhauskeller, website: www.kornhauskeller.ch) that was cooked with actual truffles, and it was amazing.
Besides truffle oil, there is truffle butter and you can also find truffle salt and preserved truffles - all of these are a less expensive way to add truffle flavor to your dish, but if you do enjoy that flavor, at some point you have to go for the real and fresh truffle! Even then there are more and less expensive options.
Once you want to get the fresh thing, you will need to know the seasons. Most prized truffles come out of Europe - France and Italy to be specific, and there are winter and summer truffles. Then, of course, there are also black and white truffles. European truffles are the best and most expensive. But there are also truffles from China and Oregon, Chinese being the cheapest and most inferior. Since it is my first time dealing with fresh truffles, I am opting for fresh Oregon truffles.
While you may have some luck at your local grocery store (on East coast, Wegman's would sell truffles when they are in season), you may find some specialty stores near you that carry it. For fresh "exotic" items such as truffles, I go to Earthy Delights. They do have a store front somewhere in Michigan, but I shop online: http://www.earthy.com/ . I have dealt with them before when I needed fresh chanterelles for my Thanksgiving feast, and I went to them for truffles. I do like their selection and they have wonderful service. You will have to pay $39 shipping fee for overnighting any perishable items in your order. Perishable items are securely packed and shipped with freeze pack and are delivered by Fedex early in the morning.
If you see fresh truffles sold in a store, you will notice that they are stored in rice - that is to control the moisture, but the wonderful side effect is that rice will absorb some of the flavor from the truffles and will be great to use in a risotto later, once you are done with the truffles. Earthy Delights also will ship the truffles in rice to you. Here's my "pot of gold":
From all my readings and research and looking at various recipes, it appears that to get the most of truffle flavor and make best combination of flavors is to go for earthy notes, so root vegetables are a good choice. I went through several of my cook books and finally settled on a recipe from Eurodelices series book on Seafood - Crown of Scallops and Fresh Truffles.
For several reasons I am not recreating the recipe exactly, but rather use it as an inspiration. The recipe in the book is intended to be a cold dish, I will be making a hot dish, and the biggest difference is that as recipe calls for fresh scallops and then proceeds to use them (mostly) raw, I do not have that luxury here, so I will be cooking my scallops. Let's begin!
Vegetable Soup with Scallops and Truffles
Recipe calls for making a vegetable stock with carrots, leeks, shallots, and onions, with later addition of tomatoes. Stock is later to be used for making sauce. I will make a vegetable soup-puree instead. Thinly slice leeks, carrots, and shallots.
I've two lessons to share here. First is from a chef at TAG restaurant. Slice leeks very thinly and then wash them thoroughly because of how leeks grow, they capture a lot of dirt between the leaves - leeks are likely the dirtiest vegetable out there. Second lesson comes from Modernist Cuisine (although it is kind of a very intuitive fact, but it is nice to read it in a book and know that author actually conducted experiments to prove the facts) - if you are going to puree the ingredients or the shape of the cut doesn't matter for presentation of your dish, cut all the ingredients uniformly and as small as possible. The smaller the size, the faster it will cook. Uniformity in cut size will ensure uniform cooking of all the veggies in the pot.
Add all the vegetables to boiling water in a pot and let cook until all vegetables are soft.
While vegetables are cooking, shave the truffle.
Use a special tool to shave off very thin slices. The marbling of the inside of the truffle looks beautiful, but I was a bit surprised to see that inside is significantly lighter. The pictures of black truffles I saw, even inside is dark. But I guess that is the difference between the more expensive European truffles and this Oregon variety.
Add a bit of olive oil and freshly-squeezed lemon juice and let stand.
As vegetable stock is cooking, cut the tomatoes and fennel.
Add a bit of fennel to the soup. To cook rest of fennel, heat a pan and add a generous piece of butter.
Add fennel and cook until edges start to brown and become crispy.
At the same time as fennel is cooking, sear the scallops.
When cooked, take scallops out of the pan and let cool on a cutting board.
Add tomatoes to the vegetable stock.
Let cook 5 more minutes, until tomatoes soften. Then transfer to blender and puree the soup.
Return puree to the pan, add fried fennel, season to taste.
Thinly slice the scallops.
To serve, pour soup into bowl, arrange scallop slices on top and add truffle slices on top of scallops. Add a fennel frond to garnish.
Enjoy! This was a delicious dish with truffles, and I still have 3 more "golden nuggets" from my Earthy Delights shipment. So more truffle deliciousness to come soon!
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